Lonely Planet Tasmania

Lonely Planet Tasmania is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Explore the darkened underground galleries at MONA, learn about convict history at Port Arthur Historic Site, or hike spectacular Cradle Mountain; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Tasmania and begin your journey now!

Inside Lonely Planet Tasmania:

Colour maps and images throughout

Highlightsand itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests

Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots

About Lonely Planet: Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travellers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves.

Lonely Planet guides have won the TripAdvisor Travelers' Choice Awards in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 in the Favorite Travel Guide category.

Australia’s second-oldest city and southernmost capital, Hobart dapples the foothills of Mt Wellington, angling down to the slate-grey Derwent River. The town’s rich cache of colonial architecture and natural charms are complemented by hip festivals, happening markets and top-notch food and drink.

It’s a gorgeous place, but until quite recently Hobart was far from cosmopolitan or self-assured – it’s taken a while for Hobartians to feel comfortable in their own skins. Paralleling this shift (or perhaps driving it), the mainland Australian attitude to Hobart has changed from derision to delight: investors now recognise that Tasmania’s abundant water, stress-free pace and cool climate are precious commodities.

Not far past the outskirts of town are some great beaches, alpine areas and historic villages. And don't miss MONA, Hobart's dizzyingly good Museum of Old and New Art, which has vehemently stamped Tasmania onto the global cultural map.

AFor a week either side of New Year's Eve, Hobart heaves with sailors, travellers, food festivals and concerts. This is prime-time Hobart, when the old town treads the boards of the world stage.

Tasmania is a land of contrasts, laced with social and historical contradictions. It follows, then, that a jaunt into the the island's epic wilderness should be followed by some seriously good food and drink. It's a cycle of effort and reward, effort and reward... How satisfying!

Contents

Sign out of civilisation for a few days and head for Tasmania's wild forests, alpine plateaus and empty beaches. Trudge off with a tent and some dried fruit in your backpack, or take things easier on a multiday guided hike with upmarket hut accommodation en route.

Traversing Cradle Mountain–Lake St Clair National Park, the famous six- to eight-day Overland Track is a challenging procession of craggy peaks, tarn shelves, eucalypt forests and ice-cold lakes. What a week!

Give your Tasmanian trek a luxury twist. This four-day/three-night guided hike combines the pristine bays and granite headlands of the northeast with ecolodge accommodation and fine food and wine.

Just an hour from Hobart lie the staggering coastal landscapes, sandy beaches and historic sites of the Tasman Peninsula. Bushwalking, surfing, sea-kayaking, scuba-diving and rock-climbing opportunities abound – all good reasons to extend your visit beyond a hurried day trip from Hobart.

Don’t miss visiting the peninsula’s legendary 300m-high sea cliffs – the tallest in the southern hemisphere – which will dose you up on natural awe. Most of the cliffs are protected by Tasman National Park, a coastal enclave embracing chunky offshore islands and underwater kelp forests. The cliffs are a safe haven for seabirds, while the fertile waters below throng with seals, dolphins and whales.

Waiting portentously at the end of Arthur Hwy is Port Arthur, the infamous and allegedly escape-proof penal colony dating from the early 19th century. Today kids kick footballs and dads poke sausages on BBQs there, but it’s impossible to totally blank out the tragedy of this place, both historically and more recently.

Still harbours and misty valleys – Tasmania’s southeast has much to offer. The apple-producing heartland of the Apple Isle, this fertile area now also produces cherries, apricots, Atlantic salmon, wines, mushrooms and cheeses. The wide, tea-coloured Huon River remains the region's lifeblood. Courtesy of these southern latitudes and myriad waterways, the southeast is also known for its rainbows.

As you head south the fruity hillsides of the Huon Valley give way to the sparkling inlets of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, with Bruny Island awaiting enticingly offshore. Hartz Mountains National Park is not far inland and, further south, the epic South Coast Track kicks off at magnificent Recherche Bay.

All sounding a bit French? French explorers Bruni d’Entrecasteaux and Nicolas Baudin charted much of the region’s coastline in the 1790s and early 1800s, a good decade before the Brits hoisted the Union Jack at Risdon Cove near Hobart in 1803.

APeckish? Summer – from December to March – is definitely the time to visit the southeast. The Huon Valley harvest is in, and roadside stalls are jam-packed with fresh produce, including juicy cherries and crisp apples.

Baked, straw-coloured plains, hawthorn hedgerows, rows of poplars, roadside mansions…Tasmania’s Midlands have a distinct English-countryside feel. This is old-school Tasmania, tracing the route between Hobart and Launceston hammered out by convict gangs in the early 1800s. As the road rolled itself out, sandstone garrison towns and pastoral properties appeared: the Midlands soon became the food factory of Van Diemen's Land.

The current course of the Midland Hwy has strayed from its original path – a few meandering detours are required to explore the old towns with their Georgian main streets, antique shops and country pubs.

The underpopulated, undertouristed Central Highlands feature subalpine moorlands and trout-filled lakes. On the highlands' southern fringe is the Derwent Valley, a fecund fold studded with vineyards, hop fields, orchards and old oast houses (for drying hops). If you thumbed through a dictionary looking for the definition of ‘sleepy backwater’, it would say 'See Derwent Valley towns'.

White-blond sand, gin-clear water, high blue skies…now strip off and plunge in! But don’t think about it for too long – water temperatures here can leave you breathless.

Tasmania’s east coast is sea-salted and rejuvenating – a land of quiet bays and sandy shores, punctuated by granite headlands splashed with flaming orange lichen. The whole coast is fringed with forests, national parks and farmland.

Tasmania's west coast cops all the rain – by the time the clouds make it out here they're virtually empty! No surprise, then, that this is prime holiday terrain for Tasmanians, with plenty of opportunities to hike, bike, kayak, surf, dive and fish – set up your beachside camp and get into it. At the end of the day, fish and chips on the beach is a sure-fire winner. Or, if luxury is more your thing, you’ll find hip lodges and top-flight eateries aplenty.

APicture-postcard east coast images conjure up visions of high summer, but in truth those clear photographers’ dream days are often in winter: be open-minded about when you visit.

It’s hard to imagine a pocket-sized city more appealing than Launceston. 'Lonnie', as the locals call it, is certainly large enough for some urban buzz, but little enough for country congeniality. The city effortlessly melds the historic with the contemporary, bolstered by bright arts and food scenes. Surrounded by bush, amazing Cataract Gorge brings the wilds into the heart of town.

Launceston is cradled by rolling hills, with craggy peaks on the horizon. Just outside the city, the gently beautiful Tamar Valley unfolds – a broad estuary channelling the sea breeze. The vine-covered hillsides and fertile soils here nurture famous wines and produce. Where the river meets the sea you'll find penguins, lighthouses and Tasmania's earliest European settlement.

The historic towns to the the south and west of the city offer stately homes, heritage streetscapes and buckets of small-town charm.

AIn summer (December to February) Launceston gets giddy with flowering parks, festivals and long, still evenings by the river.

Tasmania's northwest is the island in a nutshell – wild and untramelled in places, quietly sophisticated just about everywhere else. In the far northwest in particular, there are so many candidates for the title of Tasmania's most remote corner, from the dense and ancient rainforests of the Tarkine wilderness to remote beaches swept by the cleanest air on earth. Here also are some of the best places in Australia to see platypuses and penguins, enjoy fabulous beaches and then sleep the night in charming towns where the past sits lightly upon their shoulders. Best of all, the sense of exploring one of the world's last unspoiled corners will linger long after you leave.

AVisit in winter to experience the full power of the Roaring Forties. Locals batten down the hatches for the longest, darkest nights, when the area is exhilaratingly wild and wind-lashed. You’ll get a warm welcome, but call ahead: some things close completely – or open less frequently – in winter.

If you imagined Tasmania as a land of soaring alpine peaks and dreamy, untouched wilderness, then you’ve imagined this part of the state. Welcome to the island's wild west, a land of endless ocean beaches, ancient mossy rainforests, tannin-tinted rivers, glacier-sculpted mountains and boundless horizons, where you feel like the only soul on earth. This is Tasmania’s vast outdoor playground, where your options for adventure are varied and plentiful. Come here for the toughest multi-day hikes (or gentle rainforest wanders); come to shoot rapids on untamed rivers (or cruise mirror-calm waters); and come to kayak into some of the last untouched temperate wilderness on earth (or fly over it all in a light plane). Get out into the wilds independently, or come with a guided group, but whatever you do, get out there.

AThis whole region buzzes in the warmest months (December to March). It may be busy, but the long days give you more time in the outdoors, and visitor services operate at full tilt.